Apocalypse: Let’s pair with Scotty Lago!

The end of the world is nigh. Who's gonna be on your A-Team?

The world is sure a crazy place right now ain’t it though? ISIS, Zika, Trump, Brexit, global warming, Monsanto + Bayer, immigration crises, Trump + Putin, etc. If you squint it kinda looks like the apocalypse.

Wait.

Is it the apocalypse?

I think maybe yes and if I’ve learned anything from The Walking Dead it’s good to have a team during the end of the world and so I started to think… who do I want to pair with?

I don’t want anyone lily-livered. I don’t want anyone too depressive. I don’t want anyone with the same lousy skill set that I have (‘tween us, I have no skills).

I want Scotty Lago!

The stylish bronze medalist from New Hampshire wears a beard better than anyone, knows his way around camouflage face paint and is very very smart about his firearms. Reading his Instagram comments it seems like lots of people don’t understand/appreciate his gun appreciation but I will tell you what, Scotty is the ideal gun owner. He is conscientious as he is careful. He says on the National Rifle Association’s blog:

I feel like nowadays people are getting soft and feeling a need to be so politically correct. I respect that not everyone is going to love hunting and firearms. At the same time, I wish those people would respect our love for it. It is part of our country’s history, it is a culture and it is my way of life. The country is so divided on this…and that bums me out.

The silver lining is that hunting season is right around the corner and I couldn’t be more excited!

I want to be in his duck blind when the zombies start their march!


Porn: It’s better than college football!

Vacation Forever will make you want to drop out (if you go to college)!

Who’s your favorite college football team? Are they still competing for the national championship or is your team’s bloody moose carcass lying on the side of the road somewhere very rural? Did you know that Travis Rice has a sky alter thing at his house where he puts roadkill so the hawks etc. can come feast in his Wyoming yard?

Do you think people who live in Wyoming get bummed that they have no real college football teams to cheer for? Do you think they cheer for Washington? Did you know that I’m cheering for Washington this year because my wonderful friend Cory Lake’s brother coaches their linebackers? Did you know Cory Lake used to design snowboard boots for DC?

Here’s some snow porn from BYND x MDLS called Vacation Forever. It features Tor Lundstrom, Kevin Backstrom, Max Buri, Sebbe De Buck, Ulrik Badertscher, and David Djite. It will make you hyped!


Secret: Where to snowboard this year!

Would you like to get the most bang for your buck? Don't listen to NOAA!

(Our snow expert has agreed to drop in from time to time and share secrets of the meteorological trade!)

Snow in the age of global warming is an increasingly intricate waltz. Where will it fall? Where won’t it fall? I’ve spent the better part of my life studying snow and trying to help my friends and colleagues get to it. My good friend Judah Cohen wrote a piece in today’s USA Today that explains the importance of Siberia to our global ecosystem and I would like to share that with you as it directly relates to where snow will fall this winter in the United States. His research goes against what the National Weather Service suggests which makes this a valuable read:

If you want to know just how cold and snowy our winter will be, look no further than far away Siberia, the “refrigerator for the Northern Hemisphere,” meteorologist Judah Cohen says.

The amount of October snow cover across that vast Russia province thousands of miles away is the key to the winter forecasts Cohen puts out for the U.S. each year through Atmospheric and Environmental Research, a Verisk Analytics company.

An unusually snowy fall this year in the already perpetually frosty region means those in the central and eastern U.S. can expect a cold, snowy winter, Cohen says.

Here’s how: Snow reflects about 70% to 80% of the sun’s warmth back into space, while a bare ground reflects only 20%. October is when Siberia and the entire Eurasian region sees its greatest expansion of snow cover, sometimes increasing as much as six million square miles, larger than the total land area of the U.S., including Alaska.

Just how snow-covered Siberia gets in fall helps Cohen formulate his forecast because that icy cold air over the region will slowly slosh into Europe and eventually into North America by mid-winter. Essentially, more snow in Siberia equates to colder air and the potential for more snow than normal in the U.S.

The cycle also affects climate patterns, with more snow cover often resulting in the infamous polar vortex more frequently spilling frigid air down into the eastern U.S., or dipping temperatures even lower in a single cold spell. It also tends to turn the Arctic Oscillation climate pattern negative, another sign of a colder winter in the East.

While the central and eastern U.S. may shiver this winter as a result of the Siberian snow cover, the western U.S. should see a warmer-than-average winter partly because of the La Niña climate pattern, Cohen said.

Cohen, whose research is funded by the National Science Foundation, said he found the link between Siberia’s snow cover and U.S. weather by accident. As a postdoctoral fellow, he ran global climate modeling experiments to determine the influence of unusual North American snow cover over other large-scale climate patterns.

Instead, he found the strong relationship that now forms the basis of his predictions, which he says have been 75% accurate since he began including Siberian snow cover as a factor in winter forecasts in 1999.

Cohen’s predictions are at odds this year with the prediction center’s forecast released last week that calls for a mild, dry winter for the southern U.S., and gives the East equal chances of a colder, snowier winter or a warmer, drier one.

And so, to sum up, if you want proper, deep, quality snow you should go to Stratton or Stowe or Jackson or the SLS Las Vegas.


Lando as daddy. | Photo: Lib-Tech

Miracle: Lando risen from dead!

A new rumor floats through my ears which suggest Volcom didn't decapitate Mark "Lando" Landvik! Hallelujah!

What was your favorite part of The Fourth Phase? Mine was Travis Rice resurrecting from an avalanche. A man in the crowd screamed, “He’s a god!” And that man was right. Such cinema! Such heart-tugging up n down action! Such god-like core muscles!

My second favorite part, though, was any time Mark “Lando” Landvik was on screen. Not only does the Alaskan soar like a bird, his comedy timing is impeccable. Like, he should maybe get fired from snowboarding and be forced to Hollywood with a tear-stained Volcom rucksack over his shoulder. I have no doubt that he would soon be starring in better films than Adam Sandler + Jim Carrey combined.

And earlier today I thought he did get fired by Volcom. My wonderful inside source told me that his head was on the block and whoooosh! Down came the blade. And there by the grace of God went Lando’s head.

I cried some though also looked forward to the near future when Daddy’s Got Back! would open in theaters. (It’s a comedy concept I’ve been working on featuring Lando as an aspiring hip hop music video dancer and his stuffy wife, played by Jen Aniston, who just don’t get it).

But it has been rumored by another source I refer to as Deeper Throat that Lando may, in fact, still be on the team! A resurrection from the dead that beats Travis’s!

I hope this rumor is true because I love Lando but I also hope it isn’t true because I want to get to work on Daddy’s Got Back!

"You wanna be a hippity hop dancer? I just don't get it!"
“You wanna be a hippity hop dancer? I just don’t get it!”

Too Hard to fail!

Confirmed: Being serious sucks!

The Too Hard Squad brings the pain/gain!

People who take themselves too serious are so annoying. And there’s lots of them in snowboarding. That’s why the Too Hard chicks are so refreshing. They definitely don’t take themselves too serious, and this 6 minute edit they just put out of themselves eating shit is proof.

It’s creative, it’s refreshing, it’s a little funny, and it’s really awesome.

While everyone in snowboarding is being serious and nostalgic, these chicks are doing it for the kids!

Too Hard: #nochill from danyale patterson on Vimeo.